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The subpage Talk:Television shows/Dialog formatting now holds the original Dialog formatting section, as it is extremely long, making it hard to notice any other postings on this page. It is still active. People are encouraged to review proposed formats, record their preferences, and even create new ones that they feel could be useful. — Jeff Q 10:34, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I really hate the automatically-generated tables of contents for long lists that stretch out many screen pages. I came up with a nice half-page custom solution for Blackadder that gets you to the right episode with one click and no scrolling. Unfortunately, it takes advantage of the Blackadder series' unique features:

only four "series" (seasons) of six episodes each, plus three specials, making a small matrix;

very abbreviation-friendly titles; and

easy to create a complete table of contents that never needs updating.

My two favorite quote pages, MST3K and Buffy, have 12x24 and 7x22 matrices, respectively, if completed, and have some very abbreviation-unfriendly titles. (MST3K is the worst, since its seasons vary from 7 to 24 episodes, making a very irregular matrix.) I'd appreciate any ideas on how to make a really useful but much smaller TOC for either of these. — Jeff Q 00:46, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Since I wrote the above, I created a compact custom table of contents for Buffy, so now there are two variations to consider. The Buffy TOC uses some extreme title abbreviations in a rather crowded table, so it's not nearly as elegant as Blackadder, but it seems to suffice. I still have no reasonable solution for MST3K or any other such long-running show. — Jeff Q 16:29, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Over at List of films, there's a proposal to rearrange titles in the list to fit standard English indexing and sorting practice. (The article titles remain the same — in whatever form they are released.) This is the system in use by List of people as well. If no one has any objections, I plan to change the nine or so affected titles to article-last form to conform to this indexing system. — Jeff Q 06:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No objections from me. I do think this probably is better for those searching for links, and only a slight burden on editors. ~ Kalki 19:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest to the enthusiastic editors who keep adding shows that they restrain their enthusiasm until they actually collect a meaningful set of quotes from each show before they add the link here. The red links seem to be growing faster than the blue links! Please consider my own strategy:

Collect a solid set of quotes from various sources, e.g., your own notes from watching the show, IMDb, TV Tome, other sites you find through Google, printed references. (You're under no obligation to do so much research, of course. If you've got a few quotes that you just have to share, that's enough to start a page.)

Organize and format them by whichever system you intend to present the information with. (There are many possibilities for organization and format. See Formatting Guidelines for general Wikquote policy, and Dialog formatting and the debate on film & TV show formats for TV-oriented suggestions. If all these suggestions are too much, just start with the basics: a bullet per quote. Edit any existing quote page [and Cancel when done!] to see how the Wiki formatting works.)

Edit this Television shows article and add the show in alpha order, then click on "Show preview" (not "Save page"). The proposed article update will now show a red link to your new article.

Bring up a new browser window with that link to create the article, then paste your organized and formatted quote collection into it. Save it.

Only then save the Television shows article changes.

This accomplishes three Good Things:

It reduces the time between article listing and creation to zero. (Actually negative, since you finish creating the page before you save its link on the list.)

It encourages you to create a robust set of quotes before you tease Wikiquote readers with the upcoming TV show article. ☺

It makes the Television shows list look less unfinished. (Practically speaking, it will always be unfinished, but fewer broken links looks more "professional".)

Okay, now it's really getting out of hand. The useful links are getting buried among all the broken ones. Anyone can add titles to this page; Wikiquote needs people to create the actual articles. It takes virtually no effort to add a title to this page once one has compiled enough quotes to create a decent article for a TV show.

Unless people strenuously object, I am planning to remove ALL of the titles without existing articles on Saturday (18 December). There is no advantage to having them sitting there and obscuring the useful links. — Jeff Q 06:54, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it's better to have lots of red links: it'll lead to many more contributions when people serendipitously notice shows they like. Wq is still young, and I think this is a good way to increase its info. If we can get the kind of momentum that wikipedia has, it could lead to wq becoming the place for (at least) tv/film quotes (instead of imdb, who sold out), which would then be easily editable and under the GFDL. I think only shows that in the opinion of editors won't have good quotes to list, like The baldy man or Mr. Bean, should be removed. — Jeandré, 2004-12-16t19:16z

In principle, I agree with you, which is why I haven't raised the point before. But lately a spate of anonymous users seem to be more interested in adding names to the list than attempting to provide the quotes that are what might make Wikiquote useful enough to compete with IMDb. It makes sense for IMDb, a movie database, to have movies without quotes; it makes no sense here. Yes, red links may encourage people to add pages, but the blizzard of red links runs counter to a basic expectation: it may be easy to contribute, but to be useful, it should still be easier to read.

I don't want to discourage contributions from anonymous users, as I've noticed that a considerable number of quote pages (many good ones, too, I think) are created and extended by them. But I want to encourage them (and named users, as well!) to actually do something useful, not just show off their knowledge of TV show titles. If people were just adding the names in preparation to add their pages, I wouldn't complain, but there are links that have been red for weeks or even months. I thought about removing only the old ones, but it's very time-consuming to determine what is old with the current History mechanism (especially when people don't note what they added or changed in the Summary). I decided to issue an ultimatum primarily to get people to wake up to the problem of lack of meaningful contributions. — Jeff Q 20:18, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you (Jeff Q), this sea of red links are flooding the useful pages - while I see the valid point Jeandré is making, and it's why I propose a page called [[Television shows/contribute]] where users can browse the RED links and see a show they like and Contribute - we need more of this going on.

Before I get carried away, I agree with both of you that wikiquote can offer to users someting that IMDb cannot, and this we should expand on - personnaly, I see no reason why wikiquote can't be THE PLACE to find quotations (damn atleast in the top 10). I will keep in touch, because I am attempting to have wikiquote climb in the Web Rankings... PEACE ~ RoboAction 06:03, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced that we should delete or subpage the red links, but since I haven't been able to convince Q and R — how about a compromise: moving all the red links below the blue links in their own alpha list? It still means regular maintenance, but seems to me more inviting than a subpage.

I personally do favor the creation of secondary pages of lists, that include active links and suggested pages, but without active links being made until pages are about to be created, or already have been. As I have mentioned recently in a couple of other places, I am at work on such a page for people, and if others think this is a good idea, such pages for films and shows would also provide a large listing of suggestions, and yet not a place where people would be inclined to casually create pages of trivial worth, or mere vandalizations, because of the seas of red links. ~ Kalki 19:30, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC) P.S. Such potentially large pages, should of course be divided into convenient sections, for easier editing, as most of the larger list pages are, and I think this should be done even if the initial pages are rather small. ~ Kalki 19:36, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

RoboAction has implemented the subpage strategy for List of films, and is finding, I suspect, the need to frequently shift titles between the pages (in both directions) somewhat of a nuisance. Unless folks object, I'll implement, in the next day or two, Jeandré's suggestion of splitting the Television shows page into sections of existing titles and to-be-created titles. I'll also add a preface like the one in "List of films" which will (hopefully) make it clearly to inexperienced Wikiquotians how to contribute, reducing the need for maintenance oversight. With both versions implemented, we can better compare the pros and cons of each. — Jeff Q 08:13, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just made the change. I know I didn't wait very long for comments, but I'll be happy to revert this (and re-add any titles added in the interim) if people are unhappy with this change. Give it a spin for a while. — Jeff Q 02:30, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many people are having problems creating a new page. There has been some progress in this area (some FAQs posted with various tricks, help page failure allows starting a page with one click, etc.), but virtually no documentation regarding it. Input box is a new mediawiki feature intended to make article creation more streamlined, as well as helping create correctly boiler-plated articles. I have started a discussion, and a vote, at Help talk:Starting a new page, and I urge everyone interested to join it. ~ MosheZadka(Talk) 19:47, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear Fellow Editors,
Wikiquote is in need of a new category and a variety of TV shows on the G4 network. TV shows like "Cheat!" and "Attack of the Show". PLEASE help me and other people make this happen.--WikiAlexC 22:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)